


rockabye ruby

by watergator



Series: tiny human [7]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ghosts, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 03:23:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17758847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watergator/pseuds/watergator
Summary: dan thinks their daughter is seeing a ghost





	rockabye ruby

She has the biggest, most prettiest brown eyes. Lashes curl up and away, thick and beautiful, and she has two dimples dipped on either side of her round, chubby face. So far she has the beginning wisps of blonde hair atop her head - hair that’ll eventually darken in time and most likely grow and curl just like her father’s.

But her eyes; her eyes are spectacular.

  
Dan can’t believe she’s real. Just three weeks ago she was a baby curled up in a warm tight womb; now she was Ruby Lester, now she was a real human with a certificate to her name and a sparkle in her look as Dan peers over the cot where she looks back up at him, little mouth hung open as she stares up Dan with wide, beautiful eyes.   
  
“I don’t think I’ll ever get over how beautiful she is,” Dan says, voice wobbling as Phil crosses the nursery; he has a towel draped over his shoulder and a bottle of warm milk in his hand, grinning fondly at Dan as he turns to look at him.   
  
“I don’t think you’re supposed to,” Phil comments and Dan ignores him and instead reaching down to pick her up. She feels so delicate in his hold, even as he crosses the room to where Phil has settled himself on the rocking chair where he’s readily waiting for Dan to pass her over for her afternoon feed. 

He gently and carefully passes her to Phil, pretty impressed with the baby-passing skills they’d acquired over the last three weeks without dropping their daughter, and Phil takes her and holds her in one arm whilst he readies her bottle.

She’s glancing around the room, her head is rested in the fold of Phil’s elbow but her wide eyes dart around the room from this new perspective and Dan can’t help but let out a laugh.

“Hello,” he coos at her.

She does a little flap of her arms and Phil forgets the bottle for a second as they both laugh at the way she has her gaze focused dead on Dan.

Dan makes a face at her at which she gurgles, and both parents aw at her, that is until her eyes move past Dan towards the corner of the room by the door where she keeps staring at.

“Hey little bug, you want your bottle?” Phil coos trying to get her attention again.

But she stays staring at the door behind Dan, eyes flickering with the smallest of movements when Dan peers behind him to see what’s captivated his baby’s attention so tightly.

Of course, there’s nothing there; nothing but a blank wall and the door that’s swung closed a little bit. But when he looks back at her, he’s sure she’s looking at something.

Dan’s about to say something, mention it to Phil that it looks like she’s seeing something when she suddenly lets out a shrieking wail, face screws up and Phil is shifting her in his arms with a coo.

“Aw, here honey,” he says softly over her cries as he brings to bottle to her lips. A little dribble of milk escapes but she’s not interested.

She’s still looking past Dan and screaming, until her pretty little eyes close tight and her legs kick out and Dan can feel his heart pick up speed.

Dan suddenly takes her from Phil’s arm and clutches her to his chest, turning around to stop her from looking at the wall behind him and instead where she can see Phil sat looking a little stunned.

“Dan,” he says, “what the hell are you doing?”

She’s ceased her crying into nothing but hiccuped sobs, and when Dan glances down to where her head is rested on his shoulder, he can see her watching closely at Phil this time. His heart seems to calm.

“Sorry.” Dan says quickly, feeling a little silly for snatching her up like that with no warning. “I freaked out I guess,” he tells him in a breath and Phil stands up and puts a hand on the shoulder that their daughter isn’t occupying.

“She’s a baby. Babies cry, Dan,” Phil tells him teasingly, a smile on his face.

But Dan doesn’t tease back. He swallows thickly and shakes his head gently.

“No. Did you not see - she was, she was looking at something, Phil. Behind me.” Once he says the words he sounds crazy. He glances back. Of course nothing was behind him.

Nothing he couldn’t see, at least.

“Right,” Phil laughs, not taking him seriously at all. “Well, when you two are finished your ghost busting maybe you can give our child her lunch perhaps?” he smirks, and it’s then that Dan feels a wetness of drool through the material of his shirt - not that he doesn’t mind.

He nods, and takes a breath, handing her back to Phil. This time, she seems to ignore the wall behind him entirely, looking away from it.

It doesn’t make Dan feel any better.

*

It happens more than once. It happens when Dan leans over her crib and she’ll smile as much as she can at Dan before her eyes drift up to the ceiling above his head and stare with blown out eyes until she’s squirming and ready to let out a cry.

It happens almost instantly, and Dan finds himself checking every corner of the room whenever he has Ruby looking at him, before she looks behind him and stares at whatever it is she can see.

“Dan, she’ll find anything interesting and scary. It was probably the fridge that was so captivating today. She is your daughter after all.”

Dan looks at Phil as they climb into bed, frowning. He hates that Phil won’t take this seriously, that he brushes it off as nothing, when it’s quite clearly something.

Maybe it’s because it never happens to Phil. Whenever she’s in his arms or when he’s babbling back at her, she stays peering up at him and never slightly to the left or slightly to the right.

Today Dan had been rocking her around the kitchen, when she’d gripped her tiny fists in his shirt and kicked at his chest and screamed until Dan took her out of the room.

“You’re not listening to me,” Dan says, peeling back his corner of the blankets. “She’s seeing something and it’s scaring her,” he argues, before glancing across the room to where she sleeps in her crib soundly.

Phil puts a finger to his lips and Dan nods, crawling into bed beside his husband.

“You’re paranoid.” Phil whispers once they’re curled up beside each other. “You think it’s a ghost and you’ve scared yourself silly.”

Dan sighs, but says nothing when Phil presses a kiss to his nose and rolls over with a grunted goodnight.

Dan rolls over to his back, and looks at where their daughter lies. He watches her for a moment, still and calm and perfectly fine until he eventually is dragged to sleep by his heavy brain.

*

_ He finds himself in a dark room and he can hear Ruby crying, she’s screaming, way too loud for a baby of her age, and he can’t see anything because it’s too dark in the room. _

_ She won’t stop screaming, won’t stop yelling out Dan’s name. He doesn’t know her voice, she’s too young to speak just yet but he knows it’s her voice calling out for him. _

_ “Dad!” _

_ “Dad!” _

_ “Dad!” _

_ Each scream pounds inside of his head and Dan can’t move. His feet are cemented to the floor and he’s trying to move but everything is dark and cold and instead of breaking free he curls up and cries. He screams and cries along with her until his voice stops working and all he can hear is her soft voice calling out to her this time; no more screaming. _

_ "Dad.” _

_ “Dad?” _

He opens his eyes.

“Dan?”

He looks up and he’s in bed. Sunlight streams into the room, indicating morning and Phil peers over him with his glasses slipping down his nose and worry etched into the crease of his brow.

“Dan? You good, babe?”

Dan sits up, and immediately feels the sheen on sweat that’s built up across his skin. He grimaces.

“Bad dream? Go have a shower,” Phil mumbles as he presses his lips to his temple. “I’ll go wake Ruby.”

Dan wants to protest, especially after the nightmare he just had, that he wants to go and see her, but he nods numbly and slips out of bed towards the shower.

Once the spray has started, he stands underneath and lets the heat cascade down his body, letting the feelings return to his limbs now that he doesn’t feel like jelly anymore.

He closes his eyes but it’s too dark, so he opens them and tries to focus on something else.

He can hear Phil fussing over Ruby the next room over, talking in that sweet baby voice they use as he probably changes her dirty nappy. He can hear her give a happy gurgle - no screams, no crying, nothing scary.

Dan rests his head against the tiles of the shower and lets out a shaky breath.

Why is he freaking out? He’s been a dad all of three weeks, and everything was going fine until that day when she wouldn’t stop staring at their stupid blank wall.

He has to get a grip on himself.

He picks up the body wash and scrubs it harshly over his body. He has to stop whatever insecurities he has, and grow up for the sake of his child.

He turns the water off once he’s washed over and towels himself down where he wraps it around his middle and walks back into the room.

Phil is stood by the foot of the bed, where he can see Ruby sprawled out across the covers where Phil pulls her onesie together.

“Watch her for a minute will you, I’m bursting for a piss,” Phil frowns as he moves past Dan towards the bathroom, too quick for Dan to make a joke about his old man bladder when Ruby lets out a happy gurgle at the sight of her dad.

“Morning beautiful,” Dan says to her as he looks for clothes to wear, pulling a shirt over his head and rummaging through their pant drawer for a fresh pair of boxers.

He walks back over to her to look at her in the bed.

She’s fine. She’s okay and she’s happy with the little smiles she’s starting to use more and more and Dan’s heart flips inside his chest at the sight.

“Yes! You are so beautiful!” He says in a baby voice and tickles her tummy.

She kicks her legs out and spits happily. Dan laughs at her.

“Is that funny?” He asks cheerily. “Are you funny?”

She gapes at him and flaps her arms around happily. It makes Dan feel a million times better than he did this morning when he woke; in fact, his nightmare was bleeding away from him as he enjoyed his little moment with his daughter.

“Are you a funny girl?” he coos again as he tickles her round tummy and she gargles again smiling at Dan.

Dan laughs back at her and he goes to tickle her again, when her eyes drift away from him and towards the bathroom door that’s shut.

She can hear Phil, he tells himself. He can hear the man behind the wall moving around, probably using the last of the earbuds on himself, humming away.

But she makes a quizzical noise at where he stands and Dan feels all the hair on the back of his neck stands up and his skin prickles cold as he looks at her watching whatever it is behind him.

She goes completely quiet, too quiet, and all Dan can hear now is the rushing of blood in his ears.

Then, she raises a chubby arm upwards and as Dan lets out a gasp of fear, there’s a slamming noise from inside the apartment and Dan screams and snatches his child off the bed and clutches her tight to his chest.

He goes to turn towards the bathroom but Phil’s already swinging to door open, frowning at the way Dan trembles and holds their daughter close to him.

“Dan-“ Phil starts but Dan shakes his head and moves towards him to sandwich Ruby comfortably between them both.

“Phil, Phil, did you not fucking hear that?” He rambles and he can feel the hot burn of tears behind his eyes. He doesn’t even care if he swore in front of the baby - a three week streak already broken.

Phil pushes him away gently and runs a soft hand over Ruby’ head.

“Jesus, Dan calm down,” he frowns and he sounds a little angry now, making the tears behind his eyes push more and more.

“I dropped the toilet lid on the toilet by mistake,” he tells him but Dan gulps.

That’s when Phil takes the baby out of his hands gently and holds her against his own chest.

“Seriously,” he says in a warning tone and raises his brows at him. Dan suddenly feels very small.

“Stop it now Dan. It isn’t funny anymore. She’s a baby, so just, stop being so selfish.”

Just as Ruby begins to fuss a little in Phil’s arms Dan feels his shame wash away and is replaced with anger and frustration. He balls his fists by his sides.

“I am not being selfish, Phil,” he spits back angrily, watching Phil’s own face contort into an even angrier frown.

“I’m telling you, something was wrong and-“

He’s cut off by Phil before he can finish his sentence.

“Nothing was wrong, Dan. You’re imagining things - it’s like I said. You’re paranoid.” He says, a little calmer than Dan was but that might be because of the squirming baby on his chest.

But that doesn’t stop Dan from getting angry still.

“Phil look-“ he starts but Ruby lets out a sad little cry and Phil is turning away from Dan and going to fuss her, rocking her with shushes as if Dan isn’t even there.

Eventually when she’s settled and Phil has his hands cradling her head lovingly, he turns back to Dan.

“You need to stop whatever it is you’re doing. I don’t want our daughter getting hurt because of your overactive imagination.”

He says it so sternly it makes it seem like he has the last word. And he does, because Dan can feel his fingernails press bluntly into his palms where he’s holding them so tight and he scowls at Phil and shakes his head at him.

“Fine. See if I care,” he says bitterly as he crosses the room. He needs air and needs away from Phil, whom he hears give a bark of laughter after him.

“Once again; acting so bloody childish. Grow up, Dan.”

Dan doesn’t rise to the bait - he knows it he stops and turns and opens his mouth, he’ll say something stupid and the argument will escalate ever worse.

He bites his tongue and heads out the bedroom. He needs some space to himself with having Phil around him thinking he was stupid.

He shoves his feet into his shoes that lay by the door, grabs his coat off the back of the stairs, uncaring that his hair is probably still damp and he hasn’t even brushed his teeth or eaten yet, and swipes the keys off the kitchen counter as he storms past the room and out the door, giving it a good satisfactory slam on the way out.

*

The door didn’t exactly relieve a lot of his stress; only a short burst that took pride in having made it slam hard enough for Phil to hear, but now he walked around London with his hood up, covering half his face as little droplets of rain appeared from the sky.

He felt cold. Not in just a way from where the wind was etching it’s way down his clothes and biting at his skin; but he felt cold all over, like he’d been doused in water and he couldn’t get up and breathe.

He felt like he was losing his mind. He felt like maybe his sanity was slipping away from him - maybe this was it. Maybe parenthood was would push him over the end and for his fragile brain to overload and finally snap.

It’s the bad parts of his head telling him that.

He’s not losing his mind. He’s perfectly sane, and this was a blip in life. Kath has told Dan that all new parents go through big silly rows - something about breaking down together separately, so that they could build each other up again as new people: parents.

Maybe this was just one of those silly arguments. Maybe Dan had to think his daughter was seeing a ghost around the house so they’d fight just so they could make up again as stronger people.

He lets out a sigh as he turns the corner and reaches the Starbucks; he feels like an idiot, and in a way he hopes Phil does too. As he pushes the door open, greeted with the delicious smell of coffee and baked goods, Dan guesses there’s really only one good way to maybe make it up to him.

*

When he returns back, the apartment is chaos. He’s greeted with the shrill wails of his daughter and Phil trying to calm her, talking to her with a tired voice.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” he hears him speak softly to her, and Dan clutches the little brown bag he has in his hands of muffins, along with Phils coffee.

He enters the living room where he finds both Phil and Ruby, the latter of which is squirming and crying and kicking away as Phil tries to pull on a fresh onesie.

Dan’s ready to apologise; he’s been drafting a whole speech in his head on the way home, he even got the double chocolate muffins they swore off of - he wants to make up again mostly because he hates fighting with Phil, even more so when it’s something as dumb as  _ ghosts _ .

But before he can get a word in, Phil catches sight of him in the doorway and gives him a foul look.

“Oh. You’re back,” he mutters uncaring as he adjusts Ruby’s sock that she’d kicked off in her tantrum whilst Dan was gone.

Dan wants to not fight, he wants to just say he’s sorry, but the tone and attitude in Phil’s voice as he scoops Ruby off the couch has Dan’s blood boiling again.

He throws the bag at his feet harshly, not caring if his own muffin is crushed now; his appetite is long gone and Phil just blinks at him.

“Enjoy your fucking muffin,” he mutters as he walks away.

*

They don’t exchange much words after that. They spend the rest of the day in silence, working around each other. When Ruby cries, they’ll awkwardly stand at the same time, before one of them decides to got tend to her - it’s not a system that works; not one they’re used to where they’d communicate and switch around and take baby shifts.   
  
When the day comes to an end and two Starbucks coffees still stand on the kitchen table, untouched and cold, Dan drags his pillow and blanket from the room as Phil brushes his teeth in the bathroom and throws them to the couch sadly.   
  
He doesn’t particularly want to sleep in here alone, away from his family. But he hears Phil come out the bedroom and shut the door behind him and Dan guesses this is what he’ll need to do for tonight.   
  
He tucks the blanket around him as he presses his head to the pillow, with his neck twisted uncomfortably over the arm of the couch and stares out the large window ahead of him across the room.   
  
He tries to sleep with the sound of rain against the glass, and closes his eyes.   
  
_ When he opens them again, he’s back in the dark room again. He can hear Ruby again, crying out for her daddy, she’s screaming and once more Dan doesn’t move and instead sinks to the floor to cry. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ This time, Phil is there. He’s standing over Dan with a cross look on his face. He screams at him too. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Dan!” he yells. “Dan!” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Dan covers his hands over his ears and shakes his head. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “I’m not any good,” Dan pleads with big tears. “I’m not any good!” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Ruby still wails and cries in the distance. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “That demon took my baby!” Phil begins to cry and Dan looks up at him. He looks so tall and scary from all the way down here. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “That demon took my baby and it’s your fault!” Phil spits at him and Dan can feel himself shrinking smaller and smaller. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “I don’t know what to do,” Dan cries helplessly and Phil sobs over him, alongside Ruby. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Dan looks up, and he can see Ruby. She’s walking towards him. But just at her last step, she turns and walks away into the darkness of the room. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “You let her go!” Phil yells at him; he sounds angry, hurt and disappointed in Dan. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Dan can only curl up tighter. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, sounding like no noise escapes him at all. _ _   
_ _   
_ __ “I’m sorry.”   
  
When Dan wakes up, it’s with a jolt. His body feels like he’s on fire and the first thing he can hear is little cries coming from the bedroom. He wastes no time on yanking the thick blanket from his body and stumbling from the couch to the bedroom where he swings the door open to see Phil already cradling their wailing daughter to his body.   
  
Dan’s heart sinks. He can’t even get to his baby on time when she’s crying in the night.   
  
But Phil looks over at him through his sleepy eyes and glasses.   
  
“I got her,” he mumbles tiredly to him. “Get into bed.”   
  
Dan swallows thickly, then nods as he moves towards the bed, but instead of getting in he just sits on the end and watches Phil delicately rock her until her crying ceases and she’s falling back asleep on him.   
  
“You’re okay,” he whispers to her. “You’re okay.”   
  
He places her down and rubs at his eye once his hands are free and turns back to Dan.   
  
“You okay too?”   
  
Dan drops his head into his hands and that’s when it feels like a dam has burst in his chest, a sob cracking through him.   
  
“I’m fucking crazy, Phil,” he croaks, barely registering that Phil has no knelt in front of him, hands on his knees so gently.   
  
“No you’re not,” Phil tells him, voice buttery soft as he runs a hand through messy curls.   
  
“I am,” Dan looks up at him with tears streaking down his face. “I think I’m at my breaking point.”   
  
Phil frowns at him but it holds no real anger, instead he looks hurt for Dan.   
  
“Hey,” he says, rubbing a thumb across his knee, “listen to me.”   
  
Dan blinks at him, feeling his chest heave once more.   
  
“Whatever it is you’re worried about - I’m sure it’s normal to worry about. We’ve only been parents for like, three weeks,” he gives a gentle laugh but Dan shakes his head again.   
  
“No, Phil - I’m worried about stuff that isn’t real,” he whispers. “I’m worried about the things that don’t matter - things like ghosts and demons and it’s making me a bad father because I can’t stop scaring myself and you’re right,” he pauses to take a shaky breath.    
  
“My stupid overacting brain might do something reckless and then what?”   
  
Phil looks at him, so soft and lovingly before he leans forward and pressing a gently kiss on the corner of his mouth.   
  
“I promise you, she’s safe,” he tells him.   
  
“I know she’s safe,” Dan says back with a few more tears escaping him. “I just feel helpless, like if there really were something, I wouldn’t know what to do.”   
  
Phil pulls away from him and squeezes his legs hard with his hands. “That’s not true,”   
  
Dan looks down, “It is-”   
  
“You heard her crying from the living room and you ran in here. You heard something scary this morning and your first instinct was to pick Ruby up and protect her.”   
  
Dan makes a scoffing sound from the back of his throat but Phil continues.   
  
“You are a good dad. You can’t protect her from everything, Dan; things that are real, and things that might not be,” he says and Dan looks up at him.   
  
“But you can try. You can always keep trying, and you will. Dan - you’ll forever do whatever it takes to protect her, I know that. Forever.”   
  
Dan leans in and lets out another little cry and Phil just holds him. This is it - the break away and build up again, just like Kath had told him.   
  
“You’re okay,” Phil soothes him, moving his hand across his back, running in slow steady circles. “You’re okay.”

Dan climbs back into bed with Phil, but not until he’s tiptoed beside the crib to look at her, one little check before bed to see her sound asleep. Her little mouth hangs open with soft snores and her hands ball up into tiny fists as she dreams the night away.   
  
He traces his fingertips to the top of her head where her hair sprouts from. Phil’s right - she’s safe, and he’ll always make sure of that, no matter what the scenario, he’ll protect her forever.    
  
“Goodnight darling,” he whispers and she makes a little noise in her sleep and Dan smiles before turning back around and heading to bed. He turns his head just as he climbs under the covers beside Phil for one more check.   
  
“You okay?” Phil whispers as Dan burrows down beside him and he nods.   
  
“Yeah,” he whispers back. “We’ll be okay."

*  
  
Dan wakes up the early hours of the morning with a shove of his shoulder. He opens his eyes and grumbles at Phil who is sat up beside him in bed, staring at the corner of the room with the crib at the rocking chair.  
  
"Dan. Wake up," he whispers harshly as Dan pulls himself up. "What?"  
  
"Did you move the chair?" Phil asks and Dan blinks blearily at him.  
  
"What? Of course not I was sleeping you buffoon, why would you-" he pauses mid sentence when he looks at where Phil is looking, to see the rocking chair beside the crib, rocking every so slightly. Ruby is laying in her crib, peering through the bars as she watches carefully as the chair sway back and forth.  
  
Dan jumps out of bed at lightning speed and makes a run for the crib to scoop Ruby up and head back to bed in her arms. The rocking chair suddenly stills and Ruby almost instantly falls asleep on his chest as it heaves heavily with each breath.  
  
Phil looks across the bed at Dan with wide eyes.  
  
"Okay," Phil breathes, "I think we need a ghost whisperer."

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on tumblr !! @watergator


End file.
